Swimming in the United States needs a constant flow of new bodies to keep running.
It's so sad sometimes.

The reason for this is that swimming is just such a HARD sport, that most people can never get into it, and those that do, usually burn out at a young age.

At Western Zones, one of the fastest meets in the country, I checked the time standards. And, the time for 15-16 boys for a 50 free was 22.99.
The 17-18 time for boys 50 free is 23.29.
The time for the older age actually gets SLOWER.

I got up this morning, and I got ready for school. Then I did a routine check of here. In the morning, usually I just check last night's journal comments, and reply to PM's.
This morning, I had a lot to do.
So I logged on, then saw it was already 7:30.
Crap. Time to go.
I didn't even have time to read ANYTHING.
I was all like, "crap. The next time I have to check Oasis is in 13 hours at the earliest."
It turned out to be closer to 14.

Boys are OBVIOUSLY the way to go.
It doesn't even need argument, it's just obvious, right? :D

Today, our Language Arts teacher was getting rather stressed out at the end of class. She was mad because everyone was studying for the biology test today.
She said "biology is not the king class!"
And that made me realize something.
It is.
Honors Biology is by a long shot the hardest class we have to take, with Geometry some 12 furlongs back.
Everyone is always concentrating on it.
It IS a hard class.
By far the hardest.
Just, wow.

-

Why do I have to always act masculine? At swimming today, I told Blake that when he left swimming this summer I would miss him.

http://www.pns.org/SubTabGeneric.jsp?team=pnws2&_stabid_=3488
This is for reference in my journal.
I just realized something.
If I get sectionals again this year, that means I will get senior champs.
Which means I can't go to 14 and under champs.

I kinda hope I DON'T get that time, actually, because then I'll be alone at senior champs. No one else will get it.
Blake is leaving. He leaves after summer. *tears*
He's the only one that actually has senior champs times.

I took an online OCD test today.
0-7=probably not OCD
8-11=maybe OCD
12+=probably OCD
My score: 21.

If I do have OCD, I doubt it's bad. But, I have been wondering about it for a while, usually just casually thinking about it.
Well, anyway, it's definitely not a definitive diagnosis.

Well, if I do, then at least I'll be a little more interesting.

I'm generally not a cleanliness person. I'm actually one of the most sloppy people you'll meet. I have HORRID handwriting, and generally, bad organization is a FAR worse problem than compulsive organization.

Today, I got sick.
I felt it coming yesterday, and battened down the hatches.
Not enough though...
I decided to go to both school and club swimming. You stupid bastard, Chad from 7 hours ago...
I'm like wheeze-coughing now, and it's feeling harder to breathe than usual.
My mom told me to choose one swimming place tommorow, and Thursday, then I can do both again on Friday.
I agree...
I need to get "rest", although apparently my definition of the word is still swimming a mile or two a day...

First, a few small updates.

In orchestra, I was just standing up, and the orchestra teacher was all like "woah, have you lost weight?"
I didn't know I looked that thin...

Today, I started my first day of school swimming in addition to club. That's all in all 3 1/2 hours of swimming, plus 1/2 hour of dryland AT swimming, and another 1/2 hour at my house.
4 1/2 hours. Wow. I'm hungry just thinking about it.
I thought that I would be by far the fastest person in the swim team.

So, I think at least SOME of you saw my post "Africa".
I posted that for a reason.
Yes, it was from Misery. Depressing book.
Anywho, I posted it because none of us can know the pain that Annie is in. Or Paul, for that matter.
You can never know how intense the feelings other people are feeling are.
The best way we have is to see their reactions and what they say about their feelings.

He didn't see her again until late afternoon. He dry-swallowed two pills, then drifted for a while.

I was in New England recently. On this school trip thing. We left late Saturday night, and got back late last night.
Hooray for late nights.
Anywho, I was going to post a description of it, but my computer fialed last night, and when I was almost finished, somehow I pressed the space bar and got the back button instead, and it moved me to my previous tab, and my journal was gone.
And I have decided it shall remain unposted. Re writing stuff is boring, and I think a description of my trip would just bore all of you too.

I watched the finale of 6 feet under. It was amazing.

I'll give a brief explanation.
6 feet under is a show about death. It's centered around a family, the Fischers, that own a funeral home. Every episode begins by showing someone who dies, then get brought to the funeral home. The first episode, it is the father of the Fischers, Nate Fischer Sr. He has two sons, Nate Jr., and David (gay). He also has a daughter, Claire, and a wife, Ruth. And the funeral home's other partner, Federico.
A few episodes from the end, Nate Jr. dies too, from an AVM.

I don't really put that much stock in birthdays.
Who really wants to celebrate getting older?
Not me. Weird as it may seem, I really don't want to celebrate getting older. Swimming times get harder, for one. Also, I have to get older, and being older is hard.

Also, what's special about birthdays? Every day, I am a certain age, and on my birthday, that happens to just be a nice, even number.
Well, nice, even numbers are nice and even, but I don't believe they are special.

I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday. 2 reasons.
1. I wanted to see if anyone would remember.

I feel like I'm spinning plates on poles. I have to pay special attention to both each of them and all of them. I can't pay too much attention to one plate, or the others fall. I have to give special care to every one of them, but watch all of them simultaneously.
Then sometimes someone puts a cup on top of one of them, and I have to pay more attention to that one for a while.

3 plates, to be exact.
Although, sometimes there's a 4th in there. A small one.
These plates are all the things I want to accomplish in my childhood.

Plate 1: Physical achievement

We had the swim-a-thon today. It works by people pledging money for each lap we swim. Each lap is there and back. 50 yards.
It's a fund raiser, see.
The maximum we can swim is 100 laps, or 5000 yards. About 3 1/2 miles.
Quite a ways.

I have mixed reactions about how I did. I did the 5000 in 1 hour, 15 minutes. I was 2nd, behind Blake. So I beat Nolan, and Carl, and other guys at LEAST 4 years older than me.
But, I think I could have gone faster. I wasn't dead at the end. And I needed to be REALLY REALLY tired. I don't think I was.